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The moment for Irish unity is nearly over

January 29, 2013|Reuters

(John Lloyd is a Reuters columnist but his opinions are hisown.)

By John Lloyd

Jan 29 (Reuters) - The latest "troubles" in Northern Irelandbegan 45 years ago, and though much reduced, sometimes toinvisibility, they are not over yet and will not be for sometime. Protests over the Republican-dominated Belfast Council'sdecision to fly the Union Jack just on certain days happenedagain over the weekend, if smaller and less violent than in thepast few weeks.

This is what can happen after more than a century of demandfor Irish independence: violence, on both sides, takes time tolose its attraction, and its adherents. Yet the bid for Irishunity, which from the late sixties to the late nineties waswritten almost daily in blood, has failed. Now, as we'rewitnessing what may be its long withdrawal from politics,republicanism may not have another chance.

Sinn Fein, for nearly all of its life a front organisationof the IRA, has made an accommodation with unionism. Its twoleaders, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness - respectively onceheads of IRA brigades in the seventies and eighties - have notjust implicitly accepted the partition of the island, but havecalled for the nationalist community to work with the police(whom they previously sought to slaughter). They have alsodenounced those republicans who carry on terrorism under thename of the Real IRA as 'traitors to Ireland.' In a much quotedobservation, the historian Paul Bew quipped that "the IRA is toointelligent to admit that they have lost and the Unionists toostupid to realise they have won." This is what the 1998 BelfastAgreement brought.

Bringing Sinn Fein in from the cold was the raison d'etrefor the Belfast Agreement. At its core, it was a negotiationbetween the British state and a terrorist-nationalist group, ofthe kind Britain has often carried off through the past century.

The prism through which moderate unionists see the currentevents is to hope that the status quo will hold. Most do notlike people whom they regard as murderers or apologists formurder being deputies and ministers in the Northern Irelandassembly. But peace eases the disgust, as does a return oftourism to Northern Ireland.

Many unionists, though, do not see things this way. Theyview the Sinn Fein Council decision to haul down the union flagas a deliberate affront, a statement of intent to whittle awaythe Britishness of the province. Signs and symbols are of animportance here out of all comparison with the UK mainland,where few display any kind of flag or allegiance, other than toa football team. The protestors were outside Belfast City Hallagain this past weekend, waving both the Union flag and thebanner of Ulster, signifying Northern Ireland's government fromthe 50's through the 70's.

But they were only a few hundred protesters. Professor PeterShirlow, a Belfast academic who works with unionist politicalgroups, wrote recently that "politics in Northern Irelandresponds to clamour." In an interview with Reuters, he said thatthe protestors rarely numbered more than two thousand and that"had this been ten or fifteen years ago, there would have beendeaths by now." In what would have been seen as a miracle formost of the past decades, unionists and nationalists aretentatively reaching out for each other. "People," saysProfessor Shirlow, "are prepared to move on."

More: the annual Life and Time Survey done for the province,a kind of sociological snapshot, shows that many young peoplesimply refuse to see themselves as British or Irish - but livein a kind of post-national space which they call "NorthernIrish," and no longer allow themselves to be forced into ethnicor confessional silos. The same survey shows that two thirds, ofall faiths and allegiances, think things are much better; thatthey can be open about their background; and that they wouldprefer to live in neighborhoods of mixed faiths than of onefaith only.

The vigour of nationalism seems to have left, at least inthese British Isles. It is always foolish to say that identitiesno longer matter and inter-communal peace will be forever: thatwas said about the various peoples of the Balkans, the SovietUnion and of Lebanon. But 'post-nationalism' may be taking rootin Britain, where four nations were forced or woven at differenttimes and in different ways into one state.

Failure of imagination and political skill in Britain'sruling class lost the Republic of Ireland, and after itssecession, a long sore has run through Britain, as terrorismerupted in spasms and the Republic claimed the north. Yet nowthe spasms are weak and the Irish government wisely (and not toocontroversially) dropped the claim that it was the legitimategovernment of the entire island of Ireland fifteen years ago.There's a chance the sore is healing.